


Honey and Axes

by NavyGreen



Series: Dwarven-Kings and Green Valleys [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Thorin Lives in the Shire, and forge metaphors, bee metaphors!, but only lightly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24753115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NavyGreen/pseuds/NavyGreen
Summary: "The dreams are never unexpected. But they are always unwelcome."Thorin and Bilbo address it.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Series: Dwarven-Kings and Green Valleys [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675180
Comments: 9
Kudos: 94





	Honey and Axes

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike the other works in this series, this has a slightly more dark tone, and concerns PTSD. However, it's not at all graphic and much more fluff than angst. If the subject matter makes you uncomfortable anyway, feel free to skip this work. Hope you enjoy!

The dreams are never unexpected.

But they are always unwelcome.

They find Thorin at his weakest. They touch him with feather-soft claws, at first. They test his resolve, his ability to wake.

They find his walls broken, crumbled, more often than not. They find the dwarf vulnerable. Defenceless.

So they slip pass the threshold, steps like drips, onto a land unwelcoming but weak.

And they attack.

* * *

Thorin finds the morning cold, and unwelcoming.

If he were back in Erebor, he could walk through its carven halls, find closure in the blue torches, the stares of statues of Dwarves of old. The Mountain would cradle him, protect him, like the Mother it was. Even Ered Luin would’ve sung him a lullaby, echoed in his footsteps and the distant ringing of forges. It would chase the shadows and horrible flashes into the open air and slam the stone gates shut. The mountains could protect him like no other could.

But the porch of Bag End would do.

The hour was early, weaning on the dim light of dawn. Despite this, however, the Hobbits of the Shire were out and about.

Thorin liked to compare them to bees. Buzzing and flying about, always finding something to do, flittering from once place to the next and communicating to each other in their strange, silence dance. And, of course, Hobbits were quite fond of the colour yellow, honey too. The hivemind of a swarm – well, Thorin wasn’t exactly sure he could contest it. The silent conversations between Bilbo and Lobelia – which always ended in either a huff or a half-swallowed curse – seemed enough evidence for him.

Some Hobbits Thorin recognised. Tulip and Timbil, housed down Bag Shot Row in the smial with yellow-tinted windows, walked towards the markets, hand in hand. Lilly and Bella gossiped, fresh flowers tucked into the crook of their elbows.

But most passing Hobbits he could not put a name to if he tried (which he was not – could not; the edges of his mind thrummed with pale skin and glowing swords, so loud that any names were drowned and suffocated before they came to the surface). Some Hobbits waved to him, and Thorin had adopted enough Hobbit mannerisms to wave back politely, despite their round faces bringing forth no identification. He could not imagine the Hobbits were suffering the same predicament – everyone in the Shire knew of the Dwarf of Bag End.

But something about the passing, nameless company comforted him. There was life, here. Life that buzzed, like bees.

A flash of white-

Thorin blinked, long and tight. The space between his ears rumbled, like an overpassing storm. His fingers tightened around his warm mug, and he almost wished it were a sword- his sword; Orcrist.

The dreams had left his bones rattled. And they still trembled, now, shuddering under his skin. His thick fingers twitched.

The sunlight of the morn was _cold_ , despite its hue. _Cold and painful_ , Aule damn it.

The air from his lungs escaped his lips in a huff that caught the light of the dawn. It only left his mouth cold.

A creak of a door hinge-

“You’re up early.”

Thorin felt his shoulders let loose a tension he was not aware he’d been holding.

“Bilbo,” was all he said, quiet in the morning air. A reminder. A prayer.

A pause.

Thorin’s left side warmed as the Hobbit sat beside him. The bench creaked slightly under their shared weight. His patched robe brushed against the Dwarf’s bicep, and their knees touched, delicately. Thorin did not turn his head.

Another pause.

The Dwarf watched a sparrow land on the fence-line. It twitched its head, caught the watery glow of the dawn in its wings. It pecked at fencepost, pulling up chips of white paint. He’d have to repaint them.

“We could take you to the doctor.”

Thorin’s brow creased.

Doctors and healers were for infections, for battle wounds, for fevers and vomiting. They were for the needy, the sick, and the aged.

Thorin was none of those. He had not been for a long time, and would be for longer.

He was just… affected. An axe slightly off-balance – either some minor mending or some adjustment would solve the issue.

And yet, something flipped in his gut. And, like an uneven battle axe, it flew off-centre, clipped the edge of some unknown target and fell heavily into the ground. He grimaced.

Bilbo shuffled on the bench, pulling his hands from his elbows and wiggling one arm around Thorin’s. Thorin pulled his eyes from the sparrow, but only made it as far as the dark green patch on Bilbo’s wrist. It snared him with its even stitching and light stain at the corner. Thorin was unwilling to free himself and face something… more intense.

“It’s not bad, Thorin,” Bilbo murmured, and although his voice was soft, his tone was…guarded. “Its- my mother had them too. It happens.”

Dwalin had them, Thorin knew. So had Balin – and his father, Thrain. Frerin… Thorin hoped he had never gotten the chance. But they had grown from it – their screams had fled the quietness of the night. Eventually. Their shakes had lessened. Their bursts of emotions – anger, grief, fear – had dissipated like dust on the wind.

They had _healed_. They had placed their distorted, imperfect weapons into the forge and crafted it anew. They had fixed themselves.

And Thorin… Thorin had _not._

His fingers clenched around his mug. His knuckles were white.

“She couldn’t sleep, for months,” Bilbo continued, guarded tone still an underlying current in the river of his voice. “Not well, at least. She would drop our plates and fall to the floor as they shattered. She… Thorin, I _understand_.”

A small hand covered Thorin’s cup. He slipped it from the Dwarf’s – trembling – fingers, and replaced it with his own hand. Their fingers wrapped together.

“I understand.”

Thorin turned to him then, and, like expected, found himself in another snare. Hazel eyes met his own, brows dragged down in worry. His lips were taut. Pale.

Thorin opened the hinges of his mouth to speak. “I’m-”

“ _Thorin_ ,” Bilbo interjected, eyes sharp, but not wicked, or malicious. His fingers tightened. Thorin had felt firmer, more painful grips. But this made his heart snap to attention.

“Don’t. Don’t do that to me, Thorin. This isn’t your fault.”

 _This isn’t your fault_.

A shaky breath left the Dwarf. And it took with it his strength.

Bilbo, somehow, managed to remain steady as Thorin’s weight fell against him. Thorin’s dark hair curtained his face, kept it hidden from Bag Shot Row and the busy worker bees of the Shire. He felt his lungs begin to crumble like a mineshaft.

“It’s good to discuss it,” said Bilbo, above him. A second hand had joined the one of Thorin’s arm, knuckles white as they squeezed. The Dwarf’s white shirt crumpled under thin fingers. “Helps.”

Thorin was not _weak._ He was not _needy_. He was a Dwarf of Erebor, a Dwarf of Durin Folk. He saw the destruction of his people, a dragon’s fire and what lay left of a Dwarf after it. He saw his brother’s face and his own, silver crown upon his head and golden shackles to match. Thorin had played audience to the deaths of so many-

And yet-

“You die.”

Thorin’s voice left him like the crack of a rotten tree, echoed on a murmur in the wind. The faint snuffing of the final torch in a darkened crypt.

A pause. A moment stretched like butter over too much bread.

A hand rose from his arm, brushed dark and silver strands behind Thorin’s ear.

“I’m here.”

* * *

Slept took them that night.

And it was not Thorin who the dreams found defenceless and huddled behind crumbled walls –

But Bilbo.

The Dwarf awoke to silence.

No birds tweeted outside, for the sun was gone and the moon had taken its place. Hobbits, despite their early hour of waking, retired to their humble abodes early into the night. Not even foxes or other small creatures rustled in the green growth around Bag End.

Quite was not unusual.

But silence was.

Thorin’s eyes remained closed, and he forced his breathing to return to a steady pace despite the dread sprinting through his blood.

Something was off – what was it? Something had woken him. _What was it?_

Then-

“Thorin.” Hushed. Uneven.

The Dwarf’s eyes flew open, his back jerking from the mattress and arm reaching for Orcrist’s usual place.

An Orc- an Assassin. A Dragon-

Bilbo’s hand clamped down on Thorin’s wrist, pinning it to the blankets.

“Hey- hey, Thorin, look at me.”

Bilbo’s eyes were red-rimmed, his hair tumbled and unbrushed. His robe of patches was pulled around his shoulders and tugged tight around his waist. The cuffs – normally tucked up to reveal a sliver of his wrist, were loose and folded where his thin fingers met Thorin’s wrist. He swallowed thickly.

“It’s just us,” he whispered.

Thorin licked his lips, lungs quivering, although they were regaining their shape slowly. “Just us,” he repeated lowly. _Just us, both alive and well- well maybe not_ well _, but alive_.

Bilbo smile was strained, but true. He released Thorin’s wrist, his cold fingers trailing lightly across his knuckles, and climbed onto the bed. The covers whispered as his weight shifted. The bed frame creaked, but just barely.

Thorin lifted his hand and cupped his cheek, fingertips cradling the curve in his jaw and the lobe of his ear. He lowered his head and rested his forehead against the Hobbit’s own. Dark lashes fluttered against sun-kissed skin, splattered with freckles, and Thorin watched as the Hobbit limped. His shoulders dropped, and his head tilted, leaning into Thorin’s palm. A breath left his lungs slowly, and, like a forge, his light dimmed into a glow. Not to burn, or craft or melt, but to warm, cook, and light.

Moments passed with Thorin cherishing the glow and light of his Hobbit. His thumb traced soft circles into his cheekbone, carving its softness and singular scar into memory.

“You okay?” Bilbo murmured, eyes still closed and shoulders dropped.

“Could ask the same of you,” Thorin replied, just as soft.

“I…” Bilbo shifted, and his lashes parted to reveal tired, hazel eyes. “No. But I’m going to see the doctor tomorrow. Will you come with me?”

Blue met hazel.

And, for the first time since entering the Shire, Thorin understood the complicated, silent dance of the bees.

A twitch of a brow. The squeezing of a hand. The tenderness of the eyes.

A pause. A moment stretched between them, but not empty. Never empty.

Bilbo smiled, more beautiful and treasured than any mineral or crafted object.

Like honey.

“Thank you.”


End file.
